Author’s Note:
This story is about lost songs. Lost songs are songs that have been lost to time; nobody knows what they are called or who made them. This often happens when songs aren’t properly preserved on the Internet. Usually, the only proof of their existence is a short snippet of the song, but sometimes full songs turn up.
Some well known examples include “Everyone Knows That / Ulterior Motives” and “The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet“.
The idea of lost songs is terrifying to me, which inspired me to make this story.
~~~
Music shows us beauty in the intangible. You cannot see it, taste it, or hold it in your hands, and yet it is such an integral part of human society. It is the language that the blind can see and the deaf can feel. It is a grand symphony of invisible color; it is the consistent rhythm that beats in our hearts; it is the crescendo of harmony that brings us together.
Songs are portals into worlds that we otherwise would never see. They give us the chance to explore galaxies, to dance along the stars, and to sail across the space-time continuum. Songs soothe and heal broken minds; they give a voice to those who don’t have one; they pull people out of dark depths and encourage them to carry on.
I am not one of those songs.
I do not bring joy to the world. I do not make people happy anymore—for I am a lost song.
I do not know my name. I do not know who created me or my date of creation. I do not know my lyrics, the album I belong to, or even my country of origin.
It was not always this way.
There was a point in time where people loved me. There was a point in time where I was someone’s favorite song. People would turn up the radio whenever I played. I could be heard at just about every shopping mall and fast food joint.
But those days are long gone, and I am nothing but a shell of my former self. All my memories have slipped away from me like sand in a sieve. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be anymore. The efforts of my creator have been forever lost to the sands of time. I exist in a desolate corner of the universe, gathering dust and cobwebs. I dreadfully wait for the day that I fade into nothingness forever.
But that day never seems to come.
I’ve stood here for what feels like decades; the fact that I continue to stand baffles me. It means that I haven’t been totally forgotten, that I must still exist somewhere.
I see a faint light in the distance, and for once, I feel compelled to leave my solemn corner. As I walk towards it, the dark hall around me becomes brighter and brighter. Soon, holes of all different shapes and sizes form along the walls.
I’ve heard about this before. Songs can peer into the human world to see what their fans are like.
I look through a hole to my right. A teenage girl sits in a blue bedroom, scrolling through YouTube on her computer. There is a video that seems to catch her eye. It is titled “Unknown Song.”
As she clicks it, a low quality 30-second clip of a song plays. Realization washes over me like ocean waves on a shore.
It’s me. I am the song playing.
I look all around, and I soon realize that everyone around me is working to find my origin. I see people late at night researching. I see people contacting record store owners trying to find information. I see social media threads speculating and theorizing.
I haven’t felt this overjoyed since my heyday. I shed a tear, not able to believe that all of these people care about me this much.
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Oh, by the way, there’s a fake “genre” for these songs like this called lostwave. I put “genre” in quotes because it’s less of a genre and more of a community dedicated to finding and preserving lost songs. (Personally, I just like listening to lost songs, I’d rather sit on the sidelines and see other people unfurl the mystery)
Before I heard of lost media, I never thought that it was possible for a creative work to be lost to time. It makes me a little sad to think of all the songs, books, shows, and movies that are just…forgotten. I wonder if the lost song really is a lost song or a horror project to test how humans respond to things that are familiar, but not entirely. The backrooms is a horror project and the footage is eerily familiar…just a thought!
I wish you a good day/night.
I just want to get it out of the way, but this is a good story and an interesting one at that. You can't help but feel a bit sad for the lost song forgotten through time with nobody to remember them. Well almost, at least its not forgotten completely. At least it gave the song some hope and people that care.
Your description of music is just wonderful, like "You cannot see it, taste it, or hold it in your hands, and yet it is such an integral part of human society... the language that the blind can see and the deaf can feel... the consistent rhythm that beats in our hearts; it is the crescendo of harmony that brings us together." That basically sums up what music and songs are.
The way you introduce the forgotten song easily gives us that this one is not like the other remembered songs, just forgotten and recounting a time where it was remembered. Love that's it's in the perspective of a forgotten song and see their feelings, especially when it's happy that someone is listening to them on Youtube even if it's 30 seconds.
But overall I like this short story very much, round of applause <3. Goodnight, good morning, and good afternoon from Rokita-Vivi.
"It is the language that the blind can see and the deaf can feel." I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS!
"they give a voice to those who don’t have one; they pull people out of dark depths and encourage them to carry on." I honestly connect with this one. Music is very helpful for me when i am having an anxiety attack. Also it makes a reference to relating to a song when no one else understands you...beautifully written.
"All my memories have slipped away from me like sand in a sieve." PERFECT DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE
I absolutely love the way you write in the songs point of view especially in the hallway with all the holes in the walls that the song could see people enjoying songs.
Also I find interesting that he himself has forgotten his importance.
GREAT JOB!!!
Hey, there! Thanks for sharing this beautiful short story! I really enjoyed reading it, and it flows really well. Your use of paragraph breaks is well-managed and formatted in such a way as to give a nice emotional emphasis to various lines and groups of sentences. A well-placed line break can be very powerful, and I sensed in reading this that you have a good grip on this technique. I was not aware of any spelling or grammar issues, so great work with that.
In addition to these elements, there is also the factor of emotion that you've wielded nicely by giving us a glimpse into a personified forgotten song. Just the way you set everything up and described the feelings from this unique perspective is really cool. You've built this sense of loneliness in describing the silence caused by the song no longer playing or being sung. I would like to note that there are surely many forgotten songs that were composed and popular even long before shopping malls and food joints were a thing, so while the mention of such places gives the idea of relatively modern songs, it is interesting to note that there are also really ancient songs that have been lost to time as well. But of course, you couldn't describe every era of music, so I think it was great that you took one song from one point in time and built around that.
The feeling of hope at the end is awesome. I'm glad it didn't turn out to be a totally sad story. Again, the personification and visualization you've painted are wonderful. I can see in my own mind's eye the scenes as if peeking through curtains into the lives of people who are rediscovering and researching lost songs. The fact that it's so easy to envision suggests that you've done well with visual descriptions and possibly other sensory details like sound as well. Great work.
I'd give this a 10/10. Once again, thanks for sharing, and keep up the good work!
Thanks for the comment!
Hey Gengar, I love that you were intrigued by this idea and just ran with it - I think you're absolutely right that this topic of "lost songs" is incredibly thought-provoking and ought to be paired with a story! Some are even spinning in mind after watching the video you linked earlier. I usually think a lot about lost poems, but lost songs are very intriguing too.
I like how you phrased the author's note - this was a helpful context for the rest of the piece giving it more depth, and didn't seem rushed or tacked on or uneditted like many author's notes I see. I think it might be interesting to start with a scene to set the context though - like ..
"somewhere a song plays, 15 beats, a chorus, and a drum kit, beautiful but no one here knows what they are listening to. This song is unknown."
Just something to set the story in the action right off the bat using some of your author note reflections a little more I think might hook readers even more.
I thought your first two paragraphs were incredibly poetic. "Music shows us beauty in the intangible" is a great line in so many senses - especially for this piece because ultimately a unknown song is the ultimate in being intangible. I also loved the idea of songs being "portals" - beautiful and fitting and these two paragraphs could be a whole poem in themselves.
^ I'm not sure that quite fits - to me - isn't an unknown song still able to transport and unite?
It was a very interesting choice to personify the song with a first person voice - I think it'd be interesting if the song could give us some hints or guesses at their origin - a good mystery always has plenty of hints to draw meaning together and I think the poem would be even more impactful if you encouraged the reader to make their own guesses to the song's origin by providing a little bit towards hints or theories within the poem itself.
I'm not sure this context is necessary - if the reader is already buying that a song can think and talk and remember - there's not a need to explain that the songs can see humans I don't think. The other part of the personification which seemed a bit odd was the song saying it "shed a tear" - I found that a little hard to imagine / place within the context of this.
I like how you divided the story out with a mixture of longer lines and linked sentences and then very short paragraphs - it adds a slow dramatic pacing to the piece. The end for me felt a little inconclusive and maybe not quite as dramatic as it could be - but I do like the sentiment.
Overall I didn't see any spelling / grammatic things that distracted me, and I think your concept for this is a really fruitful one. Keep writing!
alliyah
Hi! This is a super quick review for this story.
Hm, I've never heard of lost songs, but it seems like a very interesting topic to discuss. The idea of a "lost song" is a great metaphor, and you wrote about it very well in this piece.
I like this paragraph a lot, it describes music so well, you used a lot of metaphors, and helped me imagine what music was in my mind. Great job with this paragraph!
I don't know how you come up with these metaphors, but they are really good! This story uses a lot of metaphors, and that's what I like about it.
I can imagine this so well in my mind, a dusty record sitting in a forgotten corner of outer space, just sitting there with the hope to be discovered. A lot of great imagery!
I feel like you could have added more emotion in this paragraph, but that is just my preference. You had a lot of emotion in the middle and start of the story, but a lot of it at the end would be a really good conclusion.
That's it! Like I said, a super short review. Keep writing, your use of metaphors is really good!
Thanks for the review!
Hello, I hope you're having a wonderful day! I'm here to give you a quick review on your story.
First of all, I appreciate that you explain what a lost song is in the author's note because I never heard of them before. I thought that this was a really well written story. The way it starts as showing how impactful music is until you rip that apart in the third paragraph. I also love that you personified the lost song into an actual character because it makes the story feel more grounded and genuine.
In the middle of the story, you break down the despair your character feels.
This line explains it perfectly.
But I love that the story ends on a happy note. There are people who discover these lost songs and try to find the origins. It's cool that you chose a teenager; it shows that anybody can enjoy these songs.
I would suggest adding more lore to the story to flesh it out a little. Like this quote below:
This is a really clever way to show the world songs live in. I would like to see what other songs are like. Maybe the lost song could remark on other lost songs it sees or talk about the popular songs that have billions of views and listeners. You could describe how a popular song looks like compared to the lost song.
Overall, this was a really good story! Good job!
Thanks for the review!